Letter to My Son

Letter to my Son is one of Jorn’s most ambitious paintings of the late 1950s, the period in which his international reputation was established. The title refers to his son, Ole, who was born in 1950. It is one of a number of works by Jorn that refer to families and childhood. The layered composition includes at least a dozen frenetic figures, loosely delineated with great energy. They have a spontaneous urgency that recalls the children’s drawings that Jorn admired during his CoBrA period.